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Over the last 40 years we have had two periods of Tory rule; one was
Thatcher and Major’s period in office from 1979 to 1997. But there was
another period between 1970 and February 1974 when Ted Heath was
installed in Downing Street. The Tory attempts to attack the working
class and attack the workers’ organisations rebounded badly then.
Should Labour lose the next election, it’s clear that an incoming Tory
government would be a government of crisis. An industrial and, at a
later stage, a political response to their attacks from the working
class would be on the cards.
1980 saw the steelworkers become one of the first group of workers to
take on the new Thatcher Tory government, which had been elected in
1979. A union member involved at the time looks back at the action
which marked the start of the new decade.
The following letter from a Socialist Appeal reader was published in The Times
letters page for May 5th as part of a series of responses to an article
on Thatcher's legacy in a previous issue of the newspaper. We are
reproducing it here for those who missed it.
In 1983 Labour lost the election by a landslide. This gave the right wing in the Party their opportunity to fight back. The New Labour cry that the 1983 Labour Manifesto was the “longest suicide note in history” is utter nonsense. If anything the manifesto was less radical than the 1974 manifesto. There was a huge amount of Tory luck in the 1983 general election, Thatcher had managed to pull off a military victory and the SDP traitors had divided the Labour vote.
"Where there is discord may we bring
harmony..." said Margaret Thatcher 30 years ago this May when she was
elected as British Prime Minister in 1979. Some politicians are remembered for
their achievements, in Aneurin Bevan's case the founding of the NHS; others
like Tony Blair will be remembered as warmongers and traitors to the ideals of
the Labour movement. Meanwhile John Major will be remembered, if at all, for
his ineffectual personality and his blandness. But very few will have been
hated by working people with such intensity as Margaret Thatcher.
An essential lesson to draw from the miners' strike is the vital role of leadership. The miners' leaders stood head and shoulders above the majority of British trade union leaders at this time. Arthur Scargill in particular demonstrated an unbending will to struggle in the face of the most appalling personal abuse and character assassination. In this sense the leaders of the union were a source of inspiration for the miners in the areas. At the same time these leaders were inspired by the courage and determination of the rank and file miners, of their wives and their communities. Unfortunately courage alone is not enough to win such titanic battles.
Twenty-five years ago on March 5, 1984 the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) embarked upon the most important class struggle in Britain since the general strike of 1926. A ferocious battle ensued. Billions of pounds were spent by the ruling class to crush the miners’ militancy. More than ten thousand miners were arrested; two were killed on the picket lines and countless others injured. Decades of so-called consensus were obliterated and the real and ugly face of British capitalism was exposed for all to see.
Today, almost 25 years since the miners’ strike
began, the industry has been decimated, with only a few thousand jobs left. The
proud traditions remain as the Durham Miner’s Gala demonstrates each year, and
many miners have taken their fighting traditions into the wider labour
movement. But many of the pit villages are crumbling and the social effects may
never be completely overcome, on the basis of capitalism.
But this destruction wasn’t an ‘act of god’ or some huge work of nature
like the tsunami. This was a deliberately worked out plan. It was an attempt to
take on and smash the most militant determined and class conscious section of
the organised labour movement. And this was seen as a critically important task
by the ruling class ad their chosen instrument, the Tory Party. It even had a
name, the Ridley Report.
The Labour
Movement must learn from the lessons provided by its own history. The trade
unions were created out of class struggle. To establish themselves they had to
fight the hostility of Parliament, the courts, the employers and the media. Here we trace how the TUC arose from the need
to secure a legal basis for the developing union movement in the 1860s.
Pentrich in Derbyshire is a quiet place these days. But in 1817 it was the centre of a plot to
overthrow the Government of the day.
In April and May of 1797 the British ruling
class was horrified when two naval mutinies broke out; the first was at
Spithead, close to Portsmouth; the second at the Nore which marks the seaward
approach to the Thames Estuary.
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